Whose culture is it anyway?
If Wikipedia won’t let Ed Winkelman in their “cultural icon” entry, then just who are our cultural icons? Who/what are yours? If they are only yours, can they really be considered “cultural” icons?
Cultural Icons
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Leslie,
When we were joking about this the other day, I tried to do a thought experiment and say: okay, I am a cultural icon, what am I? Trying to get an image of myself in this way was like looking at myself in a mirror through the wrong end of a telescope — the image was very small and indistinct. I came to the conclusion (not surprising) that I am not a cultural icon, because I do not bring up an iconic image, even for myself.
Then I started to wonder if a real cultural icon can see themselves the way others do, or if cultural iconship is only something that others can see.
I think a cultural icon is someone whom a sufficient number of people think a sufficient number of other people think is a cultural icon. The status is created in the imagined ideas of others.
Wikipedia didn’t quite agree with the idea of Ed being a cultural icon, or even a subcultural icon. But the exercise was not entirely a waste of time. This text which I added remains in the definition (inspired by David P.)
What does it matter, anyway? Well, I think it matters a great deal for artists. In the art world today, it seems one must be a cultural icon simply to be moderately successful. The advantages of cultural iconship are clear: being elevated out of the realm of the ordinary, beyond the scope of objective analysis. Sounds nice. We could use a how-to book on reaching this level. Dying young seems to be helpful, but is not mandatory, fortunately.
Leslie, Your Hello Kitty series shows your icons. To make it work, you need to base it on paintings that are widely recognized and that have distinctive associations. EW is so recognized within the art blogging community, but that’s probably not the group anyone thinks you mean by simply “culture.”
In landscape photography, there’s no doubt that the icon is Ansel Adams. He’s the father figure you love or hate, copy or struggle to free yourself from copying. He has been important to me and may be partly responsible for the relative lack of grand landscape photos in my work. But lately I’ve been feeling more ready to take on that challenge, I’m just allowing it to happen on its own time.
I’m comparing these two paintings to the last two you showed–the Goya one and the Matisse one–and these don’t seem to work as well formally.
The integration of the Hello Kitty into Guernica looks a bit awkward, perhaps in part because it isn’t clear that she is casting a shadow. It isn’t clear if Kitty is in the scene or standing on a flat reproduction-image. But I imagine that these kinds of ambiguity may be what you want.
As for the Arnolfini scene, I think what bothers me may just be seeing it rendered in such a flat, painterly manner.
Arthur,
Leslie has taken each artwork and reinterpreted it in her own painterly idiom. The pictures are consistent I think. The issues of three-dimensionality and lighting are especially challenging when we consider that some of the art is quite flat in the original. Given the range of genre’s she has chosen to work with, I think she has done very well.
As for the van Eyck Kitty, I am impressed at the sense of color which Leslie brings to her version. If she painted Hello Kitty in a close replication of van Eyck’s technique, it would be as ridiculous as it would be impressive. Leslie’s frank reinterpretation is refreshing.
There is an interesting similarity between the Kitty and Arnolfini’s wife. I never noticed this before.
Leslie,
I really like your Guernica Kitty. Coming from a war-torn country, it is refreshing to see hope and innocence symbolized as kitty among all that terror.
War is sad and ultimately so boring, involving people’s lowest instincts – kill and survive.
Karl,
Yes, of course Leslie has chosen a challenging project. The challenge (I think), is to tie together different styles, subjects and cultural references in a way that has both internal consistency and internal tension.
With the Matisse and the Goya images, the balance seems to work better. The juxtaposition is humorous and absurd, but Leslie’s style seems to fit better with the style of the originals. This is not so with these new images. I just saw these today, and so I’m hard pressed to say whether this is my fault or hers.
I do think the cropping of the Eyck kitty is a bit awkward; it looks like a cropped detail.(And yes, you’re right about the wife looking feline.)
Thanks for the comments so far. I have a minute to breathe and respond.
Karl,
“I think a cultural icon is someone whom a sufficient number of people think a sufficient number of other people think is a cultural icon. The status is created in the imagined ideas of others.”
Whoa, I had to read that a few times before it sunk in. Just what is sufficient I wonder? You don’t have to answer:)
Poor Arnolfini’s wife – she is sort of flat faced isn’t she?
Steve,
Yes, Adams is an institution of photography isn’t he? I guess one of the litmus tests is whether there is a ubiquitous poster of the artist’s work in every college dorm room? I don’t think of artist icons as those I necessarily emulate, however. But you are right that you have to position yourself in relationship to the biggies!
Arthur,
I appreciate your feedback. I agree that Guernica is ambiguous and I am not sure how I feel about that either. I stopped at that point and kept asking people if i needed to make the cast shadow more apparent. So you honed in on a point that I am struggling with which is helpful and food for thought. It is one thing to be deliberately ambiguous and another to be ambiguous by accident and, well, ambiguously.
Where does the flatness come from in the Van Eyck for you? Is it because of my technique of pretty direct painting versus Van Eyck’s glazing? I also think it may have to do with HK not casting much of a shadow. I end up cropping all of the original images to hone in on certain areas, but this is pretty tight – too tight maybe.
this is fascinating to me to see what is coming across. Using these famous images becomes really tricky.
And what do you mean by internal consistency and internal tension exactly? that is intriguing to me but I don’t have a complete grip on it.
Birgit,
War is sad and the worst of the worst in us comes out. Painting the Guernica piece made me the most ill at ease because I had a hard time integrating the black and white with the color of HK (As arthur picked up on) and the juxtaposition seems too light hearted for this subject. I don’t know why it didn’t bother me as much with the Goya image. Maybe the more abstracted images have a different kind of power.
Leslie,
Of course, there is a lot of controversy about the Guernica painting itself — does it make a mockery of war victims with its stylized representation? The painting is preserved behind bullet-proof glass for that reason. To me, your HK raises this question in an appropriate manner.
Leslie and Birgit,
I continuing reading William Pfaff’s The Bullet’s Song.
I think he would dispute your casual descriptions of war as “boring” or “sad.” That is not to say he is an advocate of war, but he realizes the importance of recognizing war’s appeal, in order to understand the phenomenon.
You write that war brings out the worst in people. Pfaff points out that “Heroism’s link to violence is part of its appeal . . . War offers heroism on the cheap, making potential heroes of us all — a reason to like war.” Leslie, is there a feeling of heroism (moral, perhaps) in depicting war?
Karl,
Yes, if I were full of testosterone and gullible, in search of mystical guidance, I may not think that war is ‘sad and boring’.
As it is, I have worked so hard during my life to attain a reasonable level of enlightenment that, to me, inflicting a war on people seems an absurdity.
I can say these stupid things because I am neither a politician, historian or journalist.
Karl,
Interesting ideas about understanding the appeal of war to understand war. Kind of like understanding your politcal rivals in order to beat them at their own game so to speak. I see the value in that. I also see the value in looking at things in terms of what people get out of it. yes, war is bad, embezzling money is bad, being an abuser is bad, but someone benefits otherwise these things wouldn’t happen. Who benefits can be the key to how these things happen in the first place.
I think there can be a moral imperative to depicting war. Like I could see someone saying: how could we NOT be thinking, talking, making images about war right now? But I don’t really feel that way about it, nor do I drive myself to make images based on moral imperative. That feels a bit forced for my taste. And if making images about war made me feel “heroic” I would worry!
Yes, if I were full of testosterone and gullible, in search of mystical guidance, I may not think that war is ’sad and boring’.
Birgit,
That is Pfaff’s entire point. Many people have not reached your level of enlightenment, and do not have your hormone mix. Pfaff believes the aesthetic appeal of war is an unchangeable and tragic part of human nature (whatever an individual human being may feel about it). His point is that to deny this is extremely dangerous, because it generates expectations of rationality that create openings for dangerous leaders who defy those expectations. Pfaff says that a refusal to believe in the tragic nature of humanity and its disposition to violence is responsible for much of what went wrong in the 20th century. As Leslie says, there is a difference between condemning and understanding. They are not exclusive, of course.
Leslie,
Your images of violence, even though they are second hand, still take their power from representations of violence against real people. The juxtaposition of Kitty with this is the poetic basis of your work, as I understand it. The van Eyck and Matisse Kitty pictures are good supporting characters, or foils, for the war paintings — but on their own they would not have the same meaning.
What I am wondering is, are you tapping into the same essential aesthetic appeal of violence that attracts other people to war rather than art? If so, is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Let me put it another way. Can we postulate that an artist, when doing his or her own work for their his or her own ends (e.g., “nor do I drive myself to make images based on moral imperative”) will depict that which he or she loves in some sense? The question raises other questions that are difficult to answer, such as: Why should Goya or Picasso or you love war? or Why should you paint that which you don’t love?
Could it be because, as June reminded us earlier, “Death is the mother of beauty”? If we reject that notion, what other interpretation can we offer for this art?
You made quite a leap going from the earlier idea of the “appeal” of war or violence to “the aesthetic appeal.” Just because art and war both involve emotion, or because an artist can depict war, is no justification.
I don’t think we necessarily make art about what we love; rather it’s about what we care about.
I don’t think we necessarily make art about what we love; rather it’s about what we care about.
Okay Steve. But at some level, “love” and “care about” sound similar to me.
As for making quite a leap, that is entirely justified in the comments section.
I agree with Karl and Pfaff on this. To say that war has an aesthetic (or some other kind of) appeal is not to say that it is ethical. Ethics is a cultural invention designed to keep us from obeying our basest desires. Obviously this has value, but it doesn’t always work.
Picasso, Goya, et al. weren’t voicing ethical approval for war, but they did see its aesthetic appeal.
Leslie,
Where does the flatness come from in the Van Eyck for you? Is it because of my technique of pretty direct painting versus Van Eyck’s glazing? I also think it may have to do with HK not casting much of a shadow.
Yes, all of these. The contrast with the original is disconcerting (not necessarily a bad thing).
And what do you mean by internal consistency and internal tension exactly?
Your paintings (the ones I’ve seen) combine elements that don’t obviously seem to fit together. But at their best, they resolve themselves into a whole.
Arthur,
A series of paintings should always be viewed, or at least considered, as a series. With Leslie’s pictures in particular, the edge of the canvas is an imaginary thing almost to be ignored. The concept of juxaposition is as important for the paintings as for the content of an individual painting. When Leslie is finished with the series it would be interesting to see all the work together.
Whose culture is it anyway?
By the way, Leslie,
Did you ever get around to answering your own question?
Leslie,
How big are these paintings?
I’m thinking about an earlier conversation you and I had about scale. I think these might be smallish, given that conversation;Of course, the original Guernica is huge (349 × 776 cm, 137.4 × 305.5 inches) even by my standards. What would change if you painted a Hello Kitty/Guernica at that large size? Can you imagine it changing things?
Sometimes I think that cultural icons tend to be Big — big at heart (Lincoln); big in thought (Plato); big in impact (Freud) and/or big in size — Guernica.
Or to reverse it, making Guernica a nice tidy 6 x 12 inch oil painting and putting Kitty on it (which may be about what you did)? Does that reduce the iconographical value of Guernica?
I’m just playing around in my mind the place of scale in our iconographies, and that place of scale in your artistic take with HK and the iconographies.
By the way, I thought that your HK on Guernica was terrific. I love it that she’s being bowled over by that face — somehow I’m thinking Very Bad Breath!
KArl,
“Did you ever get around to answering your own question?”
Nope. It is one of those questions that is supposed to make you think twice when you even say something like cultural icon. The whole notion of whose culture we are talking about is interesting to me. Hello Kitty is an icon in certain subcultures, but certainly not for everyone. Just as Marilyn Monroe could be called a cultural icon, but some youth today would not even recognize her face (and maybe they would recognize hello kitty first!)… I was interested in who people really connected to, who they really consider a cultural icon. BUt the dialogue went elsewhere which is fine too.
June,
“How big are these paintings?”
Tiny – 4×6 inches – the Guernica is 4 x7 inches. Kind of like art postcards you get at the museum shop. That was the original idea. I can’t even imagine HK on that large of a scale. She would be like a sickly sweet mouthless godzilla – it would be horrific :) But I would have some fun painting it I imagine. There is maybe something irreverant about dimishing Guernica to such a tiny size, but the art history texts, internet, museum stores already do that. I literally think of HK as frolicking through art history books, prancing across these images in her innocent cutesy way.
June,
I love the halitosis idea! I can totally see it!